Fiorina’s Stand Against Islamophobia – 14 Years Ago

The runaway winner of the GOP’s pre-debate debate two weeks ago, California businesswoman and presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is under fire for 14 year old remarks she made “praising Muslims” (h/t Michele Bachman for the phraseology). Quite predictably this presidential election cycle has already begun to draw out Islamophobic and bigoted remarks, but non-candidate Michele Bachman’s twitter trolling has been amplified by the opportunistic outlet responsible for the original story. Clearly the exercise of digging up a 14 year old speech must have not left Bachman much time to actually read Fiorina’s remarks. Addressing her thousands of Hewlett-Packard employees in the weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, Fiorina expressed her concern for the safety of her many Muslim and Arab employees in light of the many, many hate crimes that had already targeted Arab Americans and American Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Fiorina reiterated (with dubious accuracy) the many contributions Islamic civilization has made to the world and to her company specifically. What she said was actually quite admirable in order to calm fears and preserve workplace safety – which is the role any productivity-loving corporate boss should do. We’ve got to give Fiorina props - she also recently doubled down on her post 9/11 concerns. Let’s hope she takes up the battle with Bachman and shuts down the unfounded and unintelligent bigotry that is beginning to become all too regular.